drowning but breathing
by elomelo
Summary: A collection of drabbles, long and short, about Ennis, Jack and all those caught in the web of their untimely romance. They were drowning, slowly but surely, but breathing all the same.
1. Blind

**This is a collection of different pieces written mostly for the Bettermost Drabblefest as well as other threads. Some are canon, some are what-if's while some are slightly long and others are a few sentences. I'd like to share them with you and hope you share with me what you think of them.**

**Cheers,**

**elomelo**

_**Blind**_

He knew what his Daddy would say if he knew what had been happening those nights and days with only Brokeback watching over them, its shadows hiding them from the rest of the world. If only for a month or so, with summer coming-and-going, that's all he needed - to be invisible. But Jack saw him, those blue eyes boring into his, unraveling the intricate web of thought that was Ennis, smiling the gentle reassurance. _"It's alright. It's alright."_ Except Ennis wasn't so sure it was, if it'd ever be. So he closes his eyes when he kisses Alma, replacing the red hair with black and the petite frame with muscle. Because then, if only for that moment, it's alright.


	2. Protest

_**Protest**_

Bitchin'. He might have been a rodeo fuck up and a crazy dreamer but _that_ was something Jack Twist did with ease. Everything from the grass to the sheep to the tent to the fire to the damn hole in his boots. Ennis sighed, watching the boy spew out words like a busted pipe, only stopping to breathe and take sips of whiskey. But he nodded somberly, responding in that minimal way he always did, taking in the other's words that made up for the lack of his own.


	3. Balance

_**Balance**_

Enter stage. Right and left.

Black and white. Blue and brown. Dimpled smiles and tight lipped nods. Their words, his loud, his quieter, coated with genuine laughter and contentment and cheap whiskey and the ripening summer. A flattened harmonica that didn't sound quite right and a pawn shop carving knife.

He smiles over rusty cup, cautious and careful like his movements and the few words that grow in number with the days and the scratches in the dirt. He's never really had a friend before. This is new. Like the company and the plunging of his stomach when he speaks about a red haired girl he can't look in the eye when he wants to pursue more than light pecks. So he only speaks about her when need be, not more or less. His eyes plays tricks on him. Because the other boy's shoulders don't really sag at the mention of a certain red haired girl. Because no one's eyes could be that blue. Because he's not transparent and those eyes don't see through him without any judgment.

When he's out there, outside the pup tent that smells like cat piss - _'huh, wonder how he knows what __**that**__ smells like'_ - with only the company of a cigarette and the sheep, he mulls his thoughts over like water over stone, eroding. He was never much of a talker or a socialite, even before the accident. Maybe his mother could coax words out of him easily with that warm smile and a promise of stories of dragons and cowboys, and apple pie.

He misses his mother. He never told Karen - she had enough on her mind with providing for her brothers and her fiance. She used to be gentle and full of laughter, like Ma, but all Ennis could remember was stern words and a woman that grew up too fast. Telling K.E. wasn't even a possibility. Most people found it hard to believe the two del Mar brothers were related - K.E. was loud, boisterous and known to be violent.

He doesn't know it yet but he will tell someone these things. Maybe not by the fire with the whiskey passed between them like an unsaid truce, but in a tent where their breaths will mingle like fog and their fingers will trace shapeless figures on warm faces and lips.


	4. Delivery

_**Delivery**_

A desolate, sandy lot and a yellowing trailer. When Jerry said 'out in the middle of nowhere', he wasn't kidding.

Henry looked down at the crumpled paper for what seemed like the hundredth time, then at the crooked mailbox. It was the right place and he could just slip in the box...no, he'd been given strict orders to deliver it personally.

_Well, I'm here, ain't I?_

He took a quick, sharp breath and knocked loudly on the door. He didn't notice the blinds of the window shift suddenly. A man answered. He was tall and lean as a beanpole, with dirty blonde hair and hard brown eyes that glared at Henry accusingly. He was holding a denim shirt in his grasp, knuckles white.

Henry checked the paper again quickly. "Mr. del Mar?"

"Ennis." The voice was gravelly, seemingly older than the fourty-something the man seemed to be.

"Right. Uh, this is a package for you. Sir."

The man named Ennis looked at the box in question, his expression deadpan. "Who's it from?"

"Someone by the name of...", another quick glance at the paper, "Alma."

"Alma?"

"Junior."

"Oh...where do I sign?"

"Uh, um," he handed the man the clipboard and the pen, pointing at the blank square, "right there...yeah, right. Thanks, Mr. del Mar." He handed him the package. "Have a good-"

But the man had shut the door and had retreated back to the darkness of his trailer. Henry sighed and got back into the second hand car, and pulled out of the lot.

The man, once inside the safe isolation of the nook assigned to his bed, ripped off the brown paper and took out the shoebox. It was worn and faded like everything else that bore witness to what once was. He read the postcards, despite how sore his eyes would be looking at the print, and drank himself to sleep, clutching the half-open box to his chest.


	5. Whiskey

Protest

_**Whiskey**_

The bottle was warmed by their fingers. They passed it between themselves like the time and conversation.

The bottle was even warmer, forgotten by the fire outside the tent. Their breaths smelled of its contents. Their breaths mingled.

The bottle's cold now, even as he grips it tightly between calloused, work-worn fingers. Because there are no other hands to pass it too.


End file.
